The future of printing

Got this idea a couple of weeks back, doing manual work trying to assemble something I haven’t researched it! Well, I’ve researched a bit, but that does not count because I can’t prove it or bring some good theoretical arguments to it.

It’s more like a feeling, a simple idea:

The future will be a lot about rearranging atoms!

Imagine you’ll be able to buy only a small box, so small it will fit in your pocket, go home with it, power up you special ‘printer’ and get all those atoms rearranged based on a model you’ll be able to download from internet. Even further, if the ‘printer’ has a shredder too, you’ll be able to reuse the atoms from different useless things, recycle them and rearrange them into something else, you definitely need now.

Maybe this sounds a loot like science fiction, but, the more you look into it the more you’ll see how practical it would be.

Off-course, it will require very accurate maps of, well, atoms within an object. You wouldn’t like to obtain a cloud of useless gas, perhaps toxic too, instead of the so needed object. That map will have to contain a lot of data, perhaps more than we’re used to store right now – but that constantly improves, isn’t it?

It will also require compressing the space between the atoms, or who knows, maybe just rearranging them in a more convenient pattern for shipping. Maybe one day, we’ll simply be able to create minuscule neutron stars and get all the ‘big bang’ figured out.

Would love to read more on this topic, but, as per know – the internet is great for ‘surface’ information, an expert’s opinion is still rather difficult to find.

Disclaimer: For sure someone thought of this already. That does not prove anything, I haven’t read the idea somewhere, so it makes it my Utopian idea too. Would rather like to see someone else has the same ideas, that would actually mean we have more in common than we know.